2014 - My Year in Books!!

My goal for 2014 was to read 40 books. I figured I had this in the bag since I'm not in nursing school anymore, I have FOUR whole days off every week. I mean… what would I be doing?? Not reading that much, it turns out. I read 32 books this year. Not bad! But not as many as I expected. Oh well, there's always next year!! I think I'll set my goal for 40 next year again and see if I can do better.

Anyway, these are the books I read, taken from my 2014 challenge on Goodreads. I love Goodreads so much. It's the place I keep all the books I want to read on a list, and where I keep track of all the books I read and when I read them. I also, love using it to find new books to read. It's so nice to have all my books in one place. When I want a new book from the library or Barnes and Noble, I just head on over to my "To read" list.

Now a review of some of my favorite books from this year (starting from January).

My Notorious Life by Kate Manning
From the Goodreads synopsis, "Inspired by the true history of an infamous female physician who was once called “the Wickedest Woman in New York,” My Notorious Life is a mystery, a family saga, a love story, and an exquisitely detailed portrait of nineteenth-century America."
I loved this book! I love historical fiction, especially when it involves feisty feminists, women's health and midwifery. Great characters, intriguing stories and it's based on a real woman!

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
I read about this book on a list of must read books (I can't even remember where or what the list was about other than that…) and after reading I can't help but agree. Ugh, this book. Delicious, achingly beautiful, and thought provoking are all ways to describe this book. It's sort of science fiction, religious commentary, and dystopian novel all rolled into one. I cried at the end and I kind of want to just read it over and over again.

Cress by Marissa Meyer
This is the third in the fairy tale retelling Cinder series this one focuses a bit more on Cress (her version of the Rapunzel story), but brings back all of our favorite characters from the first two books. I love these books and I love re-imagining fairy tales.

House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout
This is the memoir by journalist Amanda Lindhout who traveled to seemingly every corner of the globe, as a traveler and then as a journalist and photojournalist. This memoir tells of her childhood growing up in Canada, how she used to escape into National Geographic magazines, and then proceeds to her 20's where she worked in a bar to earn money to travel the world, eventually turning it into a paying job. The book also covers her 15 months held captive by militant islamists in Somalia and the amazing strength that helped her survive. I love memoirs and this one was at times hard to read (due to descriptions of her abuse) but so gorgeously written.

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
I have to admit, I kind of fell in love with the cover of this book, which is always nice because I appreciate good covers. I love to read LGBT representations in YA books and they seem to be few and far between, although admittedly growing. I have to say I was jealous of the Hollywood setting for this book and I liked the behind the scenes feel of Emi's job as a set designer on movies.

Ash by Malinda Lo
Another fairy tell retelling (see I really love them), this time of Cinderella. This one includes more magic than the original one and includes a fairy world that Ash is able to travel back and forth in between. There's also a kickass female huntress. Plus, more LGBT YA representation!

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
This is the sequel to The Sparrow. I have to say I was pretty darn excited when I found out there was a sequel. While I'm not sure this one is as good as the first, it does offer necessary follow up and closure to what the heck happened after the end of the first book.

The Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich
This is the sequel to The Midwife of Venice that I read last year. This one picks up where the previous book left off with our protagonist living in Constantinople and still catching babies as well as getting into more trouble. Like I've said I just love historical fiction about midwives.

The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkins
The final book in the Mara Dyer series!! Ugh, I've loved this series since I first read it, even though I was hesitant to even try it because I don't really like paranormal thriller sort of books. But these books are just so interesting! I'm constantly on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happens. This book is a great end to the series, answering pretty much all of the questions I've had since the beginning of the series.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
I read this book almost entirely on planes to and from New York in November and it is the perfect plane/airport read. It's light, funny and interesting. I enjoyed the format of this book (although perhaps not the weight of the glossy pages) and Amy Poehler comes across as accessible and funny. I've heard the audiobook version is hilarious because Poehler reads it herself, so I may have to check that out eventually.

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
I picked this one up in one of the airport bookstores because I was afraid I might finish my books before I got home.  This was an interesting read about a journalist's spiral into "madness" which really turns out to be a rare disease with neurological and psychological symptoms. Medical mysteries (is that a book genre?) are super interesting to read.

The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman
Oh look, more midwifery historical fiction! This one is written by an actual CNM (certified nurse midwife) and is set in West Virginia in the 1920's and 1930's. It's always interesting to read about different times and see how different and yet the same it is, especially birth.


Statistics:
Books by female authors: 31
Books by male authors: 1 (Goes to show that I really do try to consciously choose female authors)
YA books: 8
Biography/Memoir: 8

Too much "Darkness" in YA

For background on what I'm about to discuss please see the first article by Meghan Cox Gurdon and the second followup article.

Maureen Johnson, author of ten YA books participated in a discussion with Meghan Cox Gurdon on NPR this morning. If you missed the live show, check out this link. (click the listen to the mp3 button at the bottom.) For more information about MJ check out her twitter account.

*All quotes are in bold. I have also used abbreviations for names for ease. Maureen Johnson = MJ and Meghan Cox Gurdon = MCG*

I try not to read these type of articles because usually they just make me angry, but after MJ discussed the articles on her twitter for a while, I decided that they were something worth looking into. Also, if you want to see the huge discussion that MJ opened look at the comments on either of the articles or search for the hashtag #yasaves on twitter. You’ll find some great stories of how YA has influenced people’s lives.

Now, let me say right now, I am not attacking Megan Cox Gurdon personally. I’m sure she is a perfectly nice woman and I do not presume to know her personally. I am simply discussing the articles she wrote on the Wall Street Journal website. Since she has put these articles out in the world I take that to mean that they are fair game to be commented on and discussed.

I do not want to promote hatred, I like to imagine I spend my life combating hatred; I simply want to discuss this debate about YA literature. If you want to flame the author of these articles or anyone else for that matter, go somewhere else.

I’ll start out with a quote from MJ that I believe is very important to this entire argument about “darkness” in YA. She said, “Whatever this darkness is, because it’s a squishy undefined concept…” What she said is true. What is darkness? There can be no definite definition in my opinion, although to MCG it appears to be subjects like rape, murder, violence, self harming and eating disorders. But what is dark to one person could be a fact of life for another. Which brings up my argument of how are we to say what is right for kids and teens to read? I do not think that MCG was suggesting that we ban all books that contain these elements, although many people have alleged this. (I hope I’m correct in this assumption.)

From the end of MCG’s second article. “It is that question—the condoning of the language and content of a strong current in young-adult literature—that creates the parental dilemma at the core of my essay. It should hardly be an outrage to discuss the subject.” I do not believe that it is an outrage to discuss this subject; in fact I think it is awesome that so many people hold such strong views on this topic. The main thing I want is for people to have a view on this subject, for them to read the articles and believe something!

“The essay, titled "Darkness Too Visible," discussed the way in which young-adult literature invites teenagers to wallow in ugliness, barbarity, dysfunction and cruelty.” I take issue with this statement. I do not believe that any literature invites its readers to do this. What is the point of a book? Ask 10 people and you would probably get 10 different answers. Books are many things, an escape from our everyday life, a view of another person’s world, a source of knowledge on some subjects, etc.

An example of how "dark" books can affect teens is that I read every single one of the books in the Gossip Girl series. Considering these books came out in 2002 and I began reading them shortly after, I was roughly 13 or 14 when I began reading this series. Is this the intended age of readers? According to the amazon entry for Gossip Girl it is intended for grade 9 and up. So I wasn’t that far from being the “right” age. However I have always been mature for my age and I feel that I suffered no ill effects of reading these books. Did it make me want to go out and buy couture clothing, smoke pot or have sex? No on all accounts. It was simply an escape for me, a doorway into a different world from my own.

“The book business exists to sell books; parents exist to rear children, and oughtn't be daunted by cries of censorship. No family is obliged to acquiesce when publishers use the vehicle of fundamental free-expression principles to try to bulldoze coarseness or misery into their children's lives.” I am not trying to say that parents should step back and allow their children to read whatever they want. A parent has the right to decide what their child reads. I am just saying that these parents should not go further and try to get books taken off of the shelves at libraries and bookstores.

That being said, my parents rarely, if ever controlled what books I had access to and I turned out a normal well adjusted adult. I was always more mature than many other kids my age and so when I was 12 reading books that were meant for 15 year olds, it didn’t bother me at all. I can definitely say that I wasn’t harmed irreparably by anything I read as a teen or pre-teen.

In my opinion a child not having access to a variety of books could harm them more than reading "dark" books, because they would grow up and never be exposed a lifestyle other than their own. They could grow up believing that their way of experiencing the world is the only correct one, and this can breed both hatred and ignorance.

“I began my piece by relating the experience of a Maryland woman who went to a bookstore looking for a novel to give her 13-year-old daughter and who left empty-handed, discouraged by the apparently unremitting darkness of books in the young-adult section.” Okay, so I have an issue with this. I read a lot of YA fiction and in spite of my discussion on the “dark” aspects of YA I am honestly not very attracted to these type of dark books. I have read some of them but they definitely do not monopolize my YA reading. If I can manage to find books that I don’t consider “dark” than how could this woman not find one book that she considered appropriate for her 13 year old?

“The larger question is whether books about rape, incest, eating disorders and "cutting" (self-mutilation) help to normalize such behaviors for the vast majority of children who are merely living through the routine ordeals of adolescence.” I abhor this argument. I hope there is never a time when rape and incest are NORMALIZED. I would like to think that our society would never normalize such violent crimes as these. Why would any teenager read a book containing one of these subjects and say, “Oh, I think I’d like to go out and get raped?”. MJ pointed out a similar argument on the NPR broadcast. So, I do not believe that this is a question at all. In fact we as members of society should work as hard as we possibly can to see that this doesn’t happen!

“Adolescence can be a turbulent time, but it doesn't last forever and often—leaving aside the saddest cases—it feels more dramatic at the time than it will in retrospect. It is surely worth our taking into account whether we do young people a disservice by seeming to endorse the worst that life has to offer.” Yes, it feels more dramatic at the time, but does that make it any less real to a teenager living in the throes of dramatic life? By acknowledging how teens experience life aren’t we validating their opinions and views? So what if they look back on their thoughts 5 years later and think… “Wow, I was so overdramatic?”. If there is anything good to be gained by allowing teens the ability to express themselves and have validation for their views shouldn’t we be trying as hard as possible?

MJ also commented on the NPR broadcast that her fear was that adults would read these WSJ articles and not want their children to read YA anymore. In my opinion this would be the worst outcome of all. To me, reading is so important in a teen’s life. Whether it’s to help them figure out what they think about life, how they view others or just to know that they’re not alone, it is important.

YA saves.